SocialEngine PHP 5.0.0b1 Released!

I will say this has been the same old song and dance with SE in general on multiple fronts be it from the company and/or individual developers. This is only my opinion, but I have been a SE costumer since the early days, I have seen and painfully experienced issues for over 13 years. For many many years, things were over promised and under delivered. If you do not agree, that is fine. It does not prevent you from paying and using these upgrades. I am not unrealistic to think that a company cannot charge as they see fit for their product and as to maintain development of the product. It is still the consumers right to not buy that product or any upgrade and to provide feedback to the company. This forum is provided for such a reason, for discussion of Social Engine. Your opinion can and might be different. Any feedback should be welcomed by company wishing to not only improve their product but to maintain client relations.

Yes, this forum is for feedback and discussions. This is why we don't hide the posts or delete them if they follow the forum rules. We do welcome feedback when it is constructive and non-combative. Thankfully, most of the posts in this thread have been constructive and without bashing attacks. We don't like having to remove threads that become war zones with bashing, etc.

With that, we appreciate all of the feedback and civil discussions in this thread.

I should say, by constructive, I don't mean they have to be positive. Last time I said that, someone mistook it for meaning they have to be positive. Constructive posts can contain negative feedback but in general it would also contain suggestions for improvements. Of course, we do also like the positive posts. It helps to let the developers know their efforts at 1 am on Christmas Eve are appreciated.

It is good to see that SE has caught up with having a PayPal test mode, something that should have came a long time ago. I am still not sure how this is any major improvement. I do not even use the PayPal payment gateway anyways.

Not require a payment gateway to be enabled if there are only free subscriptions? Well, I am not even going to touch that one.

Yes, 2FA was added, I would have been excited about that option had I been able to even see how it works in a beta version.

Mobile apps? That is nice for those who do not currently own mobile app already through 3PD. We purchased the mobile apps thru 3 different 3DP just get get a half way working app. If I pay to upgrade to this beta v5, in the end, I will be charged by the 3DP at multiple levels when they update their app for the rebuilding and other customization that will need to be re-added.

I am going to make a prediction here and now. I predict the 3DP, on which we are so heavily dependent, will follow the lead now set by your company and will attempt to charge fees for upgrades to plugins and themes since they are all new versions using the same rhetoric set here.

You didn't read through the list of improvements very well then. We did add more billing options. We did add a two step verification. The new theme is nicely designed. The mobile apps coming will be a great addition for those that don't have them and want them - for free. That's a huge value right there. We added plugins to Groups so that you can have more features in that. We improved speed by improving things in the database. We fixed a ton of bugs. We worked within the zend version we have right now so that clients could still use their same plugins and NOT have to purchase new ones. An upgrade to zend would have meant that clients would have had to repurchase every plugin and theme they had bought, as well as remake all customizations. We do need a bigger upgrade but we felt that these great improvements, additions, fixes and free mobile apps, and new theme were the best option to get SEPHP improved without a HUGE expense to clients.

We do have more improvements coming on our roadmap. We aren't charging a fee every release. This was a major improvement and free mobile apps. It required investment. We have got to have R & D and so we have got to get upgrade access fees at times.

I am going to make a prediction here and now. I predict the 3DP, on which we are so heavily dependent, will follow the lead now set by your company and will attempt to charge fees for upgrades to plugins and themes since they are all new versions using the same rhetoric set here.

At SNS we will not charge for the upgrades of our plugins and themes when the upgrades will be available for Se's new version.

The problem and solution in my opinion: Most of the money made by social engine and their supporters is through there "expert" services. While a lic is hundreds of dollars and not cheap for many of us the social engine experts charge between $1500 dollars to $50,000 dollars and they only need a few of those per month to make a large amount of money.

So, they don't want to make the photos section neat and clean to correctly work or any of these other issues we have had for years because one or two expert invoices will bring in a much larger amount of money and we all know money drives the bus.

We don't want to hire "experts" and no one wants to show us how to do it on our own because they will reduce their harvest of frustrated users with the thousands to spend to fix these problems

Solutions:

1. Take care of the community with more in depth instructions on how to do things without hiring "experts" Support needs to show us how these "experts" add the number of images and all kinds of other things that can absolutely be done because the "experts" are doing it but we are not able to do it with the standard install and there are not instructions.

2. Build in the basic things we need from the start to manage the network without holding back because there is another plugin supported by your "expert" services.

3. Make it more like WP where there are support forums for each plugin

4. More in depth tutorials on how plugins are made and what controls what exactly. I wanted to know how to control image count and layout for years. experts are doing it all over the place so it can be done.

5. Pay more for your affiliate programs so that you can make more sales and don't depend on your "expert" services

6. Support needs to be improved so that when you pay for monthly support someone will dig in on their own and find problems and fix them.

If you want your customers to be evangelists and tell everybody everywhere and believe you are the best you have to show it and be it. Then you will have more free advertising instead of the expensive advertising you have now. And, it will convert higher and better because people will see and know you care about customers. I remember years ago when people really helped with code and fixes of all kinds. Raymond once would post snippets and logged on and showed me how to fix a database issue. This all got off track and it's the wrong way and needs to go back to the right way. It's about money but it's about money that is based on max volume from excellent products and support and not "expert" services.

I had to edit my last post a couple of times and it needs more editing to get it right but you get the idea. "Experts" is what we all want to be and need the support to be our own experts and not be told or directed to hire "experts"

So, they don't want to make the photos section neat and clean to correctly work or any of these other issues we have had for years because one or two expert invoices will bring in a much larger amount of money and we all know money drives the bus.

I had already told you we improved the photo section for v5 for the rc release coming. If you haven't tried it, you shouldn't post about what it does or doesn't have. My local test site only has a few photos but you can see it is improved. This is photo view, after clicking the photo album to view the photos. It has a nice layout that matches the album browse page. Also, we hardly earn anything on third party plugins so we aren't doing this or that just to earn money from third party plugins in the store.

I had to edit my last post a couple of times and it needs more editing to get it right but you get the idea. "Experts" is what we all want to be and need the support to be our own experts and not be told or directed to hire "experts"

We aren't going to handle customizations in support. We direct you to experts OR here. We try to answer questions and you will see many of them answered. If I cannot find an answer, then I do not post as it wouldn't help. Some things that clients want to do require more coding knowledge or things can break. Working in a database, for example, can have huge impact on a site. It is not advised to tamper with it unless you have good knowledge of database manipulation and editing.

PeppaPigKilla said:Whilst I agree with you that the devs need to be paid you’re comparing apples and oranges when comparing a physical good with software. People have frustrations that these improvements were asked for a long time ago and this annoys them. They have a right to be annoyed. Who are we to tell them they are not. They’ll either pay or they won’t. Whether we agree with what they say or don’t they carry a voice for some of the clients and this is customer feedback whether good or bad.

GO TELL THAT TO MICROSOFT THEN. WHAT EVER DUDE IM NOT EXPLAINING MYSELF TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE